Darrell Wayne Caldwell was 28 years old when he died on Saturday, December 18, 2021, in Exposition Park, just south of downtown Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds near South Hoover Street and West Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the California Highway Patrol.
To music fans he was Drakeo the Ruler, one of the most distinctive rappers to come out of Los Angeles in years. Born on December 1, 1993, he grew up in South Los Angeles, raised by a single mother, and attended Washington High School in nearby Westmont. The Los Angeles Times once called him "the most original West Coast stylist in decades." His 2021 album, The Truth Hurts, included a song with Drake. He had one child, a son. Rolling Stone wrote that he "had a wide, ready smile and was said by friends and family to have had a good heart."
His life had already been marked by a long legal fight. He spent years in jail awaiting trial in a 2016 shooting in Carson, and in 2019 a jury found him not guilty of murder and attempted murder. He was released in November 2020.
On the night of December 18, 2021, he was backstage at the Once Upon a Time in L.A. music festival in Exposition Park, near the Banc of California Stadium, waiting to perform, when a brawl broke out and he was stabbed. Some accounts give his date of death as December 19, after he was taken to a hospital. His mother told Rolling Stone that 40 to 60 people "swamped" her sons backstage. "This happened backstage at an event. Someone has to be held accountable," she said.
Because the festival grounds are state property, the California Highway Patrol took the lead on the homicide case. In January 2022, ABC News reported that no arrests had been made. His family sued the festival's promoters and security companies for wrongful death, saying a lack of backstage security led to his death, and his mother reached a settlement in October 2026. In July 2026, Rolling Stone reported, investigators served a search warrant at a commercial property in Burbank in connection with the case.
Exposition Park is one of the best known public spaces in Los Angeles, home to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Natural History Museum, the California Science Center and its rose garden, and it sits across the street from the University of Southern California.
Los Angeles recorded about 260 homicides a year in 2018 and 2019, among the lowest yearly totals in more than half a century, yet many of those killings still went unsolved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Darrell Wayne Caldwell could be found in news archives or public records, apart from the civil lawsuits filed by his family. More than four years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was backstage or near the stage areas at the Once Upon a Time in L.A. festival in Exposition Park in December 2021, or who has seen video or photos taken there that night, may hold information that could help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen nearby or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can contact the California Highway Patrol, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
